I want to use this blog post to talk a bit about Manovich’s reading we have been assigned for week 3 and 4, and how some of the ideas discussed by him are worth thinking about in relation to our livestream project. Something that really stuck out to me as I went through it was his thoughts on variability in new media. Manovich (2001, p. 36) said, “A new media object is not something fixed once and for all, but something that can exist in different, potentially infinite versions”. His view on new media is so interesting to me – once you understand that it’s just a bunch of pixels, you see it as play-doh. It can be bent, pulled or squashed into any form; it’s like we have a media multiverse to play with.

As we continued to think about our project, we settled on livestreaming a video game. As I discussed in my last blog post when talking about Twitch, this is now pretty common and pretty damn popular too. The question could be posed: Why do people enjoy watching others play video games so much? Video games in themselves are a form of interactive media – streaming is another layer on top of that. Manovich goes on to say (p. 39) that “New media also allows us to create versions of the same object that differ from each other in more substantial ways”. Hundreds, or even thousands of people could stream the same video game simultaneously, yet create their own distinct content. The interactive nature of games lends itself perfectly here; different people with varying personalities act out and play the game in their own individual ways. Hopefully through our own livestream we let our personalities form the identity of the content as we go.

References

Manovich, L, The Language of New Media, The MIT Press, 2001, p. 36- 39.